Inde

1800 · réf. 19106AB — 1800. Paris Poignee An VIII 1800 Four large folding engraved maps six engraved foloding maps and one plan. The four large folding engraved maps are forming the 'Carte de L'Indostan ou de L'Empire Mogol' the oulines contemporary hand-coloured. First French edition with maps revised by Jean Nicholas Buache incorporating the four maps that compose Rennell's "second great work. the construction of the first approximately correct map of India" DNB. "The Father of Indian Surveying" Gole "Early Maps of India" Rennell charted the currents through the India Ocean and around Africa and later surveyed the Indian interior. He recognized Europe's growing fascination with India: "As almost every particular relating to Hindoostan is become an object of popular curiosity it can hardly be deemed superfluous to lay before the public an improved system of its geography" Rennell Preface. With Rennell's first map of Hindoostan the result of 500 separate surveys and stretching from the Himalayas in the north to Ceylon in the south and the "Great Sandy Deserts" in the west. Born in Chudleigh in Devon England James Rennell who was to become one of the mosst celebrated cartographers of his time joined the British Navy as a midshipman at the age of 14. Amidst the Seven Years' War 1756-1763 he travelled the world and learned marine surveying and hydrography. This led to his appointment at age 24 as surveyor of the British East India Company's dominions in Bengal. In 1765 Rennell began surveying India. By this time the British East India Company had maintained its foothold on the region for over one hundred years but it was still another century before Queen Victoria would set her eyes eastward and Rennell's explorations and accounts helped to fill that gap in time. Rennell combined data from British Army columns with Ain-e-Akbari 1598 a translation of Islamic geography of the empire which helped him acquire information about old divisions he therefore subdivided the country according to the Mughal provinces of 'subas'. unknown